Posted on 06/23/2007 6:19:19 AM PDT by Esther Ruth
Yahoo Religious News Brief....
By The Associated Press Thu Jun 21, 12:25 PM ET
(World Council of Churches said it would launch a global initiative to have churches worldwide rally for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands)
AMMAN, Jordan - A Geneva-based church body said Monday it would launch a global initiative to have churches worldwide rally for an end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands seized in the 1967 Mideast war.
The World Council of Churches said in a statement that it designated Jordan as a venue for its initiative, which would enlist support from religious groups worldwide.
"The initiative aims at calling on all churches to work seriously for putting an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands," the statement said.
The World Council of Churches, founded in 1948, groups 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing over 560 million Christians in more than 110 countries.
The council also will create an advocacy initiative, the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum, meant to improve cooperation among churches worldwide advocating for Mideast peace.
The council's call came during the opening of a three-day meeting gathering 130 member churches and related organizations from around the world.
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The World Council of Churches only represents leftists who attempt to take over various church organizations.
A Geneva-based church body said Monday it would launch a global initiative to have churches worldwide rally for an end to Israel’s occupation of Arab lands seized in the 1967 Mideast war.
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Lol...good luck with that one.
I’m TOTALLY for the Arab’s getting of Israel’s land .... hey wait....
They use the word “church” erroneously...I think they meant mega-coven.
Revelation has it right.
Bingo...
What about the religious in China who are imprisoned, tortured and killed for their faith?
It’s about time they looked at Christ and not their bias.
It’s been well documented that the World Council of Churches was conceived as a Communist front group.
So... why would a group whose religion is atheism start this?
hmmmm.......did they rally for the Christians of Bethlehem of whom there are very few since most fled since Muslim intlerance of the Arab takeover?!!!! what a joke this group is.
The Amman Call
issued at WCC International Peace Conference “Churches together for Peace and Justice in the Middle East”
Amman, Jordan, 18-20 June 2007
Amman imperatives:
1. Almost sixty years have passed since the Christian churches first spoke with one voice about Arab-Israeli peace. For the last forty years the Christian churches have called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In the very place where Jesus Christ walked upon the earth, walls now separate families and the children of God - Christian, Muslim and Jew — are imprisoned in a deepening cycle of violence, humiliation and despair. The Palestinian Christians from Gaza to Jerusalem and to Nazareth, have called out to their brothers and sisters in Christ with this urgent plea: “Enough is enough. No more words without deeds. It is time for action.”
2. We welcome the timely and prophetic statement of the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem. We affirm that “the Churches are part of the conflict, because the Churches cannot remain silent while there is still suffering. The role of the Churches is to heal and to bring all sides to reconciliation.” Our belief in God reminds us “that all God’s children of all religions and political parties are to be respected.” We assure the Churches of Palestine and Israel of our prayers, collaboration and resources.
3. Thus, in Amman, Jordan 18-20 June 2007, days that have witnessed a deepening of the crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories,and also includes the United Nations World Refugee Day, we representatives of Christian churches and church-related organizations from every corner of the earth, affirm the decision of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and launch the “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum” as an instrument to “catalyze and co-ordinate new and existing church advocacy for peace, aimed at ending the illegal occupation in accordance with UN resolutions, and demonstrate its commitment to inter-religious action for peace and justice that serves all the peoples of the region.”
4. This action has been taken in response to three fundamental imperatives that call us to action:
The ethical and theological imperative for a Just Peace
The ecumenical imperative for unity in action
The Gospel imperative for costly solidarity
5. The premises of this action are the following:
5.1. That UN resolutions are the basis for peace and the Geneva conventions are applicable to the rights and responsibilities of the affected people.
5.2. That Palestinians have the right of self-determination and the right of return.
5.3. That a two-state solution must be viable politically, geographically economically and socially.
5.4 That Jerusalem must be an open, accessible, inclusive and shared city for the two peoples and three religions.
5.5 That both Palestine and Israel have legitimate security needs.
5.6. That the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal, and constitute an obstacle to peace.
5.7. That the “Separation Barrier” constructed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories is a grave breach of international law and must be removed from the occupied territory.
5.8. That there is no military solution for this conflict. Violence in all its forms cannot be justified whether perpetrated by Israelis or Palestinians.
5.9. That comprehensive regional peace is indivisible from a just peace in Israel and Palestine.
5.10. That the life and witness of local churches is at the center of worldwide church advocacy for a just peace.
6. We understand the mandate of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum to be a space where we will develop comprehensive strategic approaches to the two processes of peace making and peace building. An inclusive core group convened urgently by the WCC should be mandated to facilitate this and also ensure improved coordination between all actors. The core group will be informed by the reports of the working groups of the Amman conference, and that its composition and mechanism be designed and announced by the WCC.
7. Peace building will include the following:
7.1. Furthering theological and biblical perspectives and Christian education resources around those issues central to the conflict.
7.2. Developing strategies that will support the processes of justice and reconciliation, including inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
7.3. Strengthening the churches’ responses to the occupation.
7.4. Recognizing, encouraging and cooperating with all efforts of Israeli and Palestinian civil society that are in accord with the vision and goals of the PIEF.
8. Peace making will include the following:
8.1. Defining and promoting measures, including economic ones, that could help end the occupation and enhance sustainable growth and development.
8.2. Strengthening existing efforts and identifying new models of church solidarity in action. Supporting local churches and church related organizations not only to survive and continue their powerful ministries, including educational, health, cultural and social services, but also to thrive and be witnesses of hope.
8.3. Developing a long-term advocacy strategy in order to mobilize all of our constituencies and influence change.
Amman challenges:
9. We have heard the voices of the Christian churches of Palestine and Israel challenging and saying to us:
9.1. Act with us to liberate all peoples of this land from the logic of hatred, mutual rejection and death, so that they see in the other the face and dignity of God.
9.2. Pray with us in our efforts to resist evil in all of its guises.
9.3. Raise your voices along with ours as we speak “truth to power” and name with courage the injustices we see and experience. The illegal occupation has stolen two generations of lives in this tortured place, and threatens the next with hopelessness and rage.
9.4. Risk the curses and abuse that will be aimed at you and stand in solidarity with us and with our Palestinian brothers and sisters of all faiths as we defiantly reject the possibility that occupation will continue.
9.5. Help us to tear down walls and build and rebuild bridges among all peoples in the region. Extremism on all sides produces chaos. It threatens to divide us and to destroy bridges among peoples that would lead to reconciliation and peace.
9.6. Add your hope to ours in the knowledge that evil and despair have been overcome through the death of our Lord on the Cross and through His Resurrection.
9.7. Insist with us that all dispossessed peoples, all refugees, have the right to return.
9.8. Partner with us as we seek peace and pursue it. Peace is possible. Christians and Muslims and Jews have, can and will understand one another and live together as neighbors.
10. And we representatives of Christian churches and church-related organizations from every corner of the earth, we respond:
11. Yes, we will. Together we will act and pray and speak and work and risk reputations and lives to build with you bridges for an enduring peace among the peoples of this tortured and beautiful place –Palestine and Israel– to end these decades of injustice, humiliation and insecurity, to end the decades of living as refugees and under occupation. We will work with you to seek peace and pursue it. We have allowed too much time to pass. Time has not served the cause of peace but has served the cause of extremism. This is our urgent cause that cannot wait.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Anyone attending one of these churches is complicit in this destruction.
• African Methodist Episcopal Church
• The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• Alliance of Baptists
• American Baptist Churches in the USA
• The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
• Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• Church of the Brethren
• The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America
• The Episcopal Church
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Friends United Meeting
• Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
• Hungarian Reformed Church in America
• International Council of Community Churches
• Korean Presbyterian Church in America
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
• Mar Thoma Church
• Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province
• National Baptist Convention of America
• National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Orthodox Church in America
• Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
• Polish National Catholic Church of America
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
• Reformed Church in America
• Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada
• The Swedenborgian Church
• Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America
• United Church of Christ
• The United Methodist Church •
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SBOI-74DRGH?OpenDocument
Source: Church World Service (CWS)
Date: 21 Jun 2007
Church representatives from six continents launch forum for peace in Palestine/Israel
(A WCC Update)— A new ecumenical advocacy initiative launched at the culmination of a World Council of Churches (WCC) conference in Jordan this week, is to help churches worldwide work for a just peace in Palestine/Israel.
Called the “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum,” the initiative intends to be an instrument to “catalyze and co-ordinate new and existing church advocacy for peace.” While aimed at “ending the illegal occupation in accordance with UN resolutions,” it will be an expression of churches’ “commitment to inter-religious action for peace and justice that serves all the peoples of the region.”
In his closing remarks to over 130 representatives from churches and Christian organizations from six continents attending the 18-20 June conference “Churches together for peace and justice in the Middle East,” WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia said the forum will be a “participatory group of churches and organizations meeting, interacting and cooperating in order to further a common cause...
“We expect churches worldwide to speak out with a clear voice and to stand by us in active solidarity in face of a tragic conflict that keeps Palestinians suffering and Israelis living with fear and that can only be solved with a just peace,” said Bishop Munib Younan, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, speaking to journalists at the end of the conference.
As a “journey to seek peace,” Kobia said, the forum ultimately “depends on everyone here and on the many churches looking with expectation to what we have begun in their name.” The promise that the forum encompasses is that “wherever it is made, a united and credible witness of churches together changes the course of events.”
The Amman Call
“The Amman Call,” the forum’s founding document adopted by the conference, acknowledges the fact that in Palestine/Israel “children of God—Christian, Muslim and Jew—are imprisoned in a deepening cycle of violence, humiliation and despair.” But it also affirms that “the role of the churches is to heal and to bring all sides to reconciliation.”
The Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum is to be guided by three fundamental imperatives: the ethical and theological imperative for a just peace; the ecumenical imperative for unity in action; and the Gospel imperative for costly solidarity.
Among the forum’s top challenges is the need to “liberate all peoples of this land from the logic of hatred, mutual rejection and death, so that they see in the other the face and dignity of God,” the document says.
A series of premises for the forum’s action are based on WCC policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: pertinence of UN resolutions and Geneva conventions; two-state solution with self-determination, viability and legitimate security needs guaranteed to both; Palestinian refugees’ right of return; open and shared Jerusalem; rejection of all violence whether perpetrated by Israelis or Palestinians; illegality of Israeli settlements and “separation barrier” in the Occupied Territories; and the centrality of the local churches’ life and witness for worldwide church advocacy.
Next steps
The WCC will convene a “core group” to begin implementing the conference recommendations, and to report to the next WCC executive committee meeting in September. The core group will base its proposal of an action plan on the outcomes of six working groups that deliberated during the Amman conference.
These groups made a number of recommendations about theological and biblical perspectives that need to inform the work of the forum; the impact of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the responses of the churches; justice and reconciliation; models of church solidarity in action; economic measures that could help to advance the cause of peace; and international church advocacy.
The work of the groups was informed by the experience of churches affected by other deeply rooted conflicts in such countries as South Africa, Sudan, Colombia, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, as well as by the Armenian genocide.
The conference received a welcome message from the Jordanian government. The WCC general secretary and a small delegation met with Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad and discussed the churches’ historic place in Jordanian society as well as Muslim-Christian dialogue and cooperation.
An olive tree offered by Christians from Palestine was planted on the banks of the Jordan River at a place traditionally considered as the site of Jesus’ baptism, to mark the launch of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum. Greek Orthodox Bishop Benedictus, of Amman, led conference participants in a vespers service conducted at the site church.
They are, indeed, a socialist/communist gaggle of imbeciles who only further satan's agenda.
Look up the WCC and note which denominations are members. Then avoid those 'churches' like the plague.
The WCC is a union of very different faiths - many with VASTLY different views on Jesus Christ, Salvation, and even the authority of the Bible.
This is a primarily political group - with a history of giving funds to radicals, terrorists, and have demonstrated an underlying theme of antisemitism.
It is my firm belief (and take that for what you are paying to read this post) that the WCC will be the vehicle for a one-world religion. But even in the short-term, I cannot endorse, condone, or cooperate with such a Leftist organization.
You have been warned...
African Methodist Episcopal Church [USA]
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church [USA]
American Baptist Churches in the USA
Anglican Church of Canada
Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, N.A. Diocese
Canadian Council of Churches**
Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Canada
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church [USA]
Church of the Brethren [USA]
Episcopal Church
Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad [Canada]
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Hungarian Reformed Church in America
International Council of Community Churches [USA]
International Evangelical Church [USA]
Moravian Church in America
National Baptist Convention of America
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA**
Orthodox Church in America
Polish National Catholic Church
Presbyterian Church in Canada
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. [USA]
Reformed Church in America [USA]
Religious Society of Friends [USA] - Friends General Conference - Friends United Meeting
United Church of Canada
United Church of Christ [USA]
United Methodist Church [USA]
The World Council of Churches is a group of leftists who hijack denominations’ names and prestige for their own use.
Isn’t it ironic that a leftist group can hijack Christianity for its own political uses, yet they complain constantly about conservative denominations?
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